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Surprisingly, Family Time Has Grown

By Tara Parker-Pope April 5, 2010 5:26 pmApril 5, 2010 5:26 pm

Stuart Bradford

Working parents perpetually agonize that they don’t see enough of their children. But a surprising new study finds that mothers and fathers alike are doing a better job than they think, spending far more time with their families than did parents of earlier generations.

The study, by two economists at the University of California, San Diego, analyzes a dozen surveys of how Americans say they use their time, taken at different periods from 1965 to 2007. It reports that the amount of child care time spent by parents at all income levels — and especially those with a college education — has risen “dramatically” since the mid-1990s. (The findings by the husband-and-wife economist team of Garey Ramey and Valerie A. Ramey appear in a discussion paper presented in March at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington.)

Before 1995, mothers spent an average of about 12 hours a week attending to the needs of their children. By 2007, that number had risen to 21.2 hours a week for college-educated women and 15.9 hours for those with less education.

Although mothers still do most of the parenting, fathers also registered striking gains: to 9.6 hours a week for college-educated men, more than double the pre-1995 rate of 4.5 hours; and to 6.8 hours for other men, up from 3.7, according to an additional analysis by Betsey Stevenson and Dan Sacks, economists at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Family researchers say the news should offer relief to guilt-stricken working parents.

“Parents are feeling like they don’t have enough time with their children,” said Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute in New York, which conducts research on the work force. “It’s a function of people working so hard, and they are worried they’re shortchanging their children. I’ve never found a group of parents who believe they are spending enough time with their kids.”

Although previous studies have shown increases in parenting time starting in the 1990s, the study by the Rameys is important because it links so many time-use surveys and also breaks the data down by age of the child and education level.

The rise in child-centered time is just one of the ways the American family is changing. Couples are typically waiting longer to get married and begin having children. Divorce rates are dropping with each generation.

And notably, children are no longer so widely viewed as essential to a happy marriage. In 1990, 65 percent of Americans said that children were “very important” to a successful marriage, but by 2007, the number of adults who agreed with that statement had dropped to 41 percent, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

In fact, the surge in parenting time may say more about modern marriage than about modern child care practices, Dr. Stevenson said. She notes that among college-educated parents, two- to two-and-a-half hours of the increased time takes place when both parents are together. “Everybody gets in the car,” she said, “and mom and dad both cheer on the kid.”

That may reflect a rise in what Dr. Stevenson calls the “hedonic marriage,” in which couples share home and work responsibilities so they can spend more time together.

By contrast, couples from earlier generations typically had “specialized” roles that tended to keep them apart — the husband working at a job to support the family, the wife staying home to raise the children.

“We’re seeing a rise in marriages where we’re picking people we like to do activities with,” Dr. Stevenson said. “So it’s not surprising we’re going to see that some of the activities we want do together involve our children.”

So where is the extra time coming from? Women, in particular, are spending less time cooking and cleaning their homes, while men are putting in fewer hours at the office. A 2007 report in The Quarterly Journal of Economics showed that leisure time among men and women surged four to eight hours a week from 1965 to 2003.

Notably, the data in the Ramey study do not count the hours mothers and fathers spend “around” their children — at the dinner table, for example, or in solitary play. Instead, the survey tracks specific activities in which the parent is directly involved in the child’s care.

“It’s taking them to school, helping with homework, bathing them, playing catch with them in the back yard,” said a co-author of the leisure-time paper, Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “Those are the activities that have increased over the last 15 to 20 years.”

Dr. Galinsky notes that although working parents typically feel guilty for not spending more time at home, children often have a different reaction. In a landmark study published as “Ask the Children” (Harper, 2000), she asked more than 1,000 children about their “one wish” for their parents. Although parents expected their children would wish for more family time, the children wanted something different.

“Kids were more likely to wish that their parents were less tired and less stressed,” Dr. Galinsky said.

While time may be increasing, I’m not so certain quality time is on the rise. How often do parents plop their kids in front of TV and watch a show with them rather than doing a learning activity such as making a craft or playing a game? I guess car time could be considered quality time…but not when kids are given gameboy’s to preoccupy their attention.

I sure hope that time spent “helping with homework” is really helping, not doing.

Quality time, indeed. The epidemic of hyperparenting (defined as over-involvement in decisions and activities our children could be managing themselves) makes me concerned about these study results and what they really mean.

Dr. Galinsky has correctly noted that quality vs quantity always wins with children. Chidren are acutely aware of parents “being elsewhere” or distracted. So what’ can you do:
– be as much in the moment with your kids as possible doing things that engage you both.

This doesn’t surprise me too much, especially comparing parents today to parents 30-40 years ago. I grew up with a stay-at-home Mom, but back in the 60’s and 70’s, it just wasn’t expected that your parents spent all their time interacting with you. I was expected to amuse myself – I would often be sent outside to play in the morning and not be expected back until dinner time. I rarely remember my Dad attending events, and even Mom never went to every game or every play date. They were loving parents, but the expectations were just different. Today, parents may not be home as much, but when they are home, they’re interacting with their kids a lot more. (There are good and bad sides to that – I was a lot more independent than the kid who is shuttled from one activity to another.)

TPP – “on their own” INCLUDES playing with other kids and that is what I meant. Sorry!

FROM TPP — Thanks for the clarification. Given that young children are typically supervised, this would include supervised parenting time of young children playing together. It woudl not include older children spending time with others without parental supervision.

@Kay: In a nutshell you bring up what I’ve often wonder: How independent minded will today’s children be as adults? My own childhood was spent alone or with a friend outdoors and without much supervision. I loved my parents but didn’t expect them to shuttle me to activities or play with me. Some of my fondest memories are of hanging out in the woods or taking those long bike rides (alone) to get to tennis class or the weekly piano lesson. My feeling is that those independent ways made me an independent adult. But I don’t know . . .

Lisa, when they mentioned that most of the increased time was spent by parents driving the child around, I assumed that the child would not be able to read or play anyway – they would be transported to place B by someone else (a bus driver or some adult who otherwise does not play much part in the child’s life); this way they at least communicate with their parents who will have to solve the child’s problems later, so it is better if they knew their own child well.

To TPP: yes, introvert children, same as introvert adults, actually do need some time alone to play, reflect, read or whatever, without being constantly interrupted by other persons. We need to have a piece of “our own world” that we may arrange as we wish, and where we can retreat and feel safe and unpressured after we had spent time in the “outside world” that we share with others. I think that Judge Amy had one episode on this topic – adoptive parents and other adopted children were constantly into some physical activity and noise, and the boy would hide to be alone when he got overstimulated.

Tara, really, I’m flabbergasted. I read your article and thought to myself, “Gee, what’s being described here does not sound like a good thing” (along the same lines as Lisa, #4, above me). So I went and found the study. I’ll admit I haven’t read it carefully, but just to excerpt a small clip, “a substantial proportion of the rising childcare differential between college- and less-educated parents was due to travel and activities of older children. The trends we highlight are consistent with descriptions from popular books, such as Judith Warner’s Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety (2005).” Or to take a bit from the Brookings Institution’s description of the paper in its program, The authors “hypothesize, based on comparisons of time-use surveys in Canada, that better-educated parents are putting in those extra hours with their children in an effort to get their children into elite colleges, based on the perception that there is a higher return to attending a ‘good’ college. Given the increasing difficulty of admission into these quality schools, Ramey and Ramey find that ‘increased scarcity of college slots appears to have induced heightened rivalry among parents, taking the form of more hours spent on college preparatory activities. In other words, the rise in childcare time resulted from a “rug rat race” for admission to good colleges.'” (The title of the paper presented is “The Rug Rat Race.”

Interesting, the time parents are spending with kids under 5 has dropped in the past 10 years or so, while that spent with kids over 5 has risen sharply (see the charts on pp. 57-59 of the pdf cited). Either of those changes might be good or bad, but certainly I see little in the paper that I find heartening.
FROM TPP — There is a lot of discussion around this paper that hasn’t yet been published so the sampling you provide really doesn’t reflect the larger view in the economics community. (This is not your fault as the other discussion papers connected with this aren’t published yet, although my reporting in the story does reflect the content of those additional papers.) Also, the part about spending most of the time with older children isn’t accurate — the bulk of the increased parenting time is still spent with younger children. I know what you read disputes this, but a further analysis has shown that most of the time is with younger kids.) My job as a reporter isn’t to just present the single view presented by the authors, but to seek a variety of informed opinions. It was clear from my reporting that this “rug rat race” hypothesis is not well supported, and likely only effects a very small subset of parents, if any. That’s why I didn’t spend anytime on it. The point is that there is a pronounced increased in parenting time with kids. That, coupled with marriage trends, breast feeding trends (also on the rise) etc. suggest that parenting is changing and that kids are getting more quality time with parents

Something quirky about these numbers. College educated mothers spending nearly 22 hours per week and fathers spending about 10? That’s out of 168 hours in a week!
Hard to tell how researchers from the various studies parsed the concept of “parenting” — did both parents attending junior’s soccer game count at 2 hours, 4 hours or nothing? And not counting dinner-table time seems idiotic — probably half the parenting I received in my life was at the table. And so cooking the food — where presumably kids are not involved — counts, but eating where they are in the same room does? Sounds like squirrely data. And probably microwaved meals. Ugh.
And more parenting does always mean better parenting? (Consult Ozzy, Osbourne or Nelson…)
Most kids would probably find it a vast improvement if their parents would just drown their Blackberries — likewise children with their tumorous cells.
And please ask the researchers to provide actual photos of these parents who are purportedly spending 22 hours caring or even in the presence of teenage children. Presuming said teenagers haven’t already run away or taped their parent’s mouths shut. Or turned them in to the authorities for unlawful helicoptering.
Of course I hope the noted increase in parenting by mothers and fathers means there are healthier family units in America. That we should feel pride that parents and children spend about half the time with each other as they spend with their TVs or computers is a bit sad. How about parenting by Skype?.. two activities at once!

In a time of economic scarcity and intense competition for the “good things” – i.e. admission to top colleges, athletic scholarships, internships – families have pulled inward. They are spending more time together by default not choice. Why fraternize with the enemy? We no longer live in communities but isolated with our kids in front of our ever bigger screens plotting like Lady Macbeths on how to jockey for advantage. This isn’t quality time. This is the Donner Party writ large.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. My friends who have children seem to spend a huge amount of time with their kids, compared to what I remember of my parents in the 1970’s. When my dad was home, he was usually doing chores or holed up in his “den,” not to be disturbed under any circumstances! Meanwhile, my mom was very good about helping us with homework, but she expected us to entertain ourselves — outside if possible.

My friends today seem to hover around their kids constantly and are involved in everything they do. It often seems excessive and unhealthy to me, but what do I know, I don’t have kids.

#9 – I completely agree with you; I was an introverted kid, and thank God I had parents who didn’t expect me to be involved in constant social activities and commotion. I needed my time alone and I still do! I think today’s school environments are even worse than they used to be (and they were pretty bad in my day) for kids who do not meet the American social expectation of being hyper-social. One change (for the worse) is (I think) even less tolerance of kids who are quiet, introspective or “different”. Not all kids want to play team sports, join clubs or spend all their free time interacting with others (including parents and family members!) And there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that!

People are spending less time at the office according to this study. But according to just about every other study done on the subject, people are working more hours per week. Are they spending time with the children, blackberry in hand? This would play to the quality v. quantity issue. I don’t see much to feel optimistic about here, to be honest. I suspect all this family time is part of the growing problem we have here in the US with community meaning less and less as people insulate and isolate themselves from their neighbors, overcompensating for perceived defecits in childcare due to being overworked. And if amount of time spent with children truly is “skyrocketing,” well, that confirms what I have long suspected about the average child these days: totally overattended to. When people are strained to the point of having time for only 2 things: job and children, no one wins. Children are learning from a young age the only thing that is important is mam/dad/baby/work. It isn’t a promising future for the US.

To TPP: The hypothesis of the Ramsey’s paper is that the motive for the increase in time spent with the children amongst college-educated parents is to prepare them to be competitive candidates for college admission, i.e. the “rug rat race”. They provide empiric data as well as a mathematical model to support their thesis by comparing the time spent parenting by college-educated US parents with those from Canada, a culturally similar Western country where there is no steep hierarchy amongst colleges and students attend the public universities within their province. They provide additional regional data from the US by comparing parts of the country where college admission is more competitive than others. While there is no dispute about the increased parenting time, the authors in fact challenge the interpretation of prior studies cited in your article that the increased time is due to phenomenon such as enjoyment, more flexible work schedules, and income effects, using the regional and Canada comparisons.

You have completely distorted the data and conclusions that were put forth in the Ramsey& Ramsey paper. Citing “unpublished discussion papers” by unattributed sources in your response to comment #10 is not an excuse. Just bad journalism. You may of course disagree with the Ramsey paper conclusions, but you should say so and provide counter arguments and data, instead of cherry picking parts of it to make your own story.

Very disappointing. Should the readers have to read the original research papers to figure out what they really say? How would be able to vet the unpublished data? If you are using the unpublished sources to re-interpret Ramsey’s paper, this should be disclosed in your article.

You have taken the credibility away from your blog.

FROM TPP — What’s important about this paper is the general finding and the complicated statistical analysis combining the dozen time use surveys. My article presents that data; it certainly doesn’t distort it. The paper explores several hypothesis and while the authors support the “rug rat race” theory, it’s just that, a theory, and I did not find another economist who agrees that it explains the trend. The larger, more important issue is the basic finding that parents are spending more time with kids, and that’s what I reported.

I agree with the readers who commented earlier that the time spent together may not be the best quality time. Parents are pushing their children to excel and children are spending much more time in organized activities. This is not necessarily the best thing for children or for their parents.

I spent Easter morning chasing my 12-year-old around our condo complex with water balloons. I am a 48-year-old single mom with two kids. My parents would NEVER have considered such play! I grew up in the era Kay described — with a stay-at-home Mom who sent me outdoors into the neighborhood each day. Today I know plenty of other moms and dads who truly enjoy being silly with their kids or listening to their thoughts. When time with the kids is constrained by work and other responsibilities, perhaps parents value that time more. But I see annecdotally exactly what TTP describes in the research. Very interesting trend and I wonder if parents today don’t get more satisfaction from their relationships with their kids as a result.
FROM TPP — My mom, who was definitely around but not particularly engaged with us growing up, told me how envious she was of the time I spent with my daughter. Mothers of her generation, she said, were more focused on caring for the household in general rather than playing and having fun with their kids. She told me she was thrilled to see me enjoying parenting so much. All that said, she was a fantastic grandmother and made up for any lost opportunity by thoroughly enjoying playtime with her grandkids.

You know, the whole world isn’t NYC and its suburbs. Where I live, there isn’t the push to get into elite private schools (there aren’t any) or even colleges (people can’t afford them). But they spend more time supervising their children because society keeps harping on the fact that the world is a dangerous place and children can’t simply be sent outside to play alone. Also families are smaller so there’s time to give children more attention. And children are involved in organized activities at a much younger age than we were.

By the time I was my daughter’s age we rode our bikes everywhere and our parents didn’t know precisely where we were. Now I’d probably be flogged in the village square for letting her out of my sight.

I thought it was peculiar that the study didn’t count dinner together as time together. Certainly we have some of the best discussions around the dinner table–more so that going to her baskeball game or driving her in the car someplace.
FROM TPP — That’s an interesting point. That is counted as general family time around children, but this study was trying to track direct interaction. But yes, I imagine one family’s dinner could be highly interactive and engaged while another’s could be just about the eating.

Clearly, people spend far too much time in their middle and upper class worlds if they think helicopter parenting is a bigger problem than not enough parenting. More helicopter parenting and less barely parenting would be a net good. There are so many parents who don’t ever show up at school, don’t teach their kids life lessons, and don’t ever play with their kids.

If Mad Men is at all representative of previous generations (and I believe that it is), then I believe the study. Betty Draper may be a stay at home mom, but she doesn’t exactly spend quality time with her kids. That generation was all about “Now go out and play/go to your room”.

I guess I’ll be the odd one out here. It’s arguable that kids need quality time over quantity of time but all that seems a little inconsequential when the big picture is presented. At least these children have two loving parents that care not only about them but about each other as well. I once read that the most important thing about a family unit is that the child/children are able to see their parents love one another. The strength in this article (in my humble opinion) is the mention of parents sharing roles, getting along, and wanting to do fun activities with the kids and each other. Thanks.